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THE ALABAMA HISTORICAL SOCIETY 
NIONXOOMLERY 

Reprint No. 2 



The Building of the State 



BY 



WILLIAM COLUMBUS WARD, LL. D. 



[From the TRANSACTIONS 1899-1903, Vol. IV] 



MONTGOMERY, ALABAMA 

1904 



III. THE BUILDING OF THE STATE. 
By W1LI.1AM Columbus Ward/ Birmingham. 

The beginning of a people is a prophecy of the future state. 
The foundation and superstructure of a state are made of the 
units of the people organized into a body politic. As is the foun- 
dation so will the superstructure be. 

When Cadmus, at the fountain, killed the dragon guarding it, 
and sowed the ground with its teeth, which sprang up into armed 
men, smiting and killing each other, that was but the prophecy of 
the future Greece. In all her history, until subjugated by the 
Romans, the men of Greece were engaged in destroying each 
other. The one thing that saved, is that Cadmus carried letters 
to Greece and the foundation of Athens was laid in letters and 
her civilization and commerce filled the then known world, and 
her literature has influenced all succeeding ages. 

'William Columbus Ward, third child of David and Elizabeth C. A. 
(Carleton) Ward, was born on a farm near Six Mile, Bibb county, Ala., 
April 5, 1835. His paternal ancestors migrated from England and settled 
in southeast Virginia about 1700. His great-grandfather, John Ward, 
whose wife was a Daniel, and his grandfather, also named John Ward, 
and whose wife was a Lanier (to whom he is thought to have been married 
in S. C.) removed to South Carolina in 1775-1776, and settled in Edgefield 
district. They were both in the Revolutionary War. Returning from the 
battle of Savannah, the former was killed by Tories, and afterwards in bat- 
tle the latter lost an eye. A great uncle, son of the first John Ward died 
of smallpox in the trenches around Savannah. David Ward was born in 
July, 1791, and after growing to manhood removed to Bibb county, Ala., 
and, in 1820, was joined by his father, John Ward. The Carletons are also 
English, and early settlers in Virginia, residing on the Mataponi river (in 
King George county). Robert Carleton. the most remote member of the 
family whose name is at hand, was the father of Lucy Carleton, ^vho mar- 
ried her cousin, Henry Carleton, in Va., and about 1783 with his family 
removed to the Broad river in Wilkes county, Ga. Henry and Lucy Carle- 
ton were the parents of Henry Carleton, who married Christina Bohanan, 
the daughter of the latter being Mrs. E. C. A. Ward. Henry Carleton, 
Jr., after the death of his wife removed to Monroe county, Ga.. and settled 
on the Towalaga river above its confluence with the Ocmulgee. Henry 
Carleton, Sr., was acccidentally killed by .his brother-in-law, Robert Carle- 
ton, Jr., while they were deer hunting. 

Mr. Ward was reared on a farm, and prepared for college in the county 
schools. In 1856 he entered the sophomore class. University of Alabama, 
and graduated in 1858 with the degree of A. B. ; later he received the 
honorary degree of A. M. from his alma mater; and in 1892 Furman 
University, Greenville, S. C, conferred on him the honorary degree of 

(53) 



54 Alabama Historical Society. 

The unity of the Hebrews grew out of the patriarchal character 
of their origin, and their religious habits and religious literature 
formed under the guidance of Moses, have preserved the Jews as 
a people, and influenced and governed the religion of all Jehovah 
worshipping people since Israel crossed the Red Sea, dry shod. 

Britain, subjugated by the Romans and left a prey to the vik- 
ings of the North Sea upon the withdrawal of the Roman armies, 
became subject in succession to the Anglo-Saxon, the Dane and 
the Norman. These hardy races made the foundation for the 
greatest empire that has ever existed, unequaled in laws, arms, 
letters and arts, and to-day wherever the English language is 
spoken, the power that had its origin in the people of the Norse- 
land is felt and its influence is as wide as the world. 

The New England of to-day is the product of Plymouth Rock ; 
in the Virginia of to-day is seen the promise of the settlement 
at Jamestown in 1607, diminished it may be by the results of one 
of the most destructive wars that eVer cursed the earth. So of the 
Carolinas, and so of Georgia ; it may be said that what they are 
now is the outgrowth of the seed that was planted in their set- 
doctor of laws. Immediately after graduation, 1858, he was elected to the 
chair of mathematics, logic and rhetoric at Howard College, Marion, where 
he remained until April 23, 1861. On that day he marched away with the 
Marion Light Infantry to Va. This organization became Co. G, 4th Ala- 
bama regiment, infantry. Mr. Ward was in the battle of Manassas and 
all the principal engagements of Virginia up to the battle of Gettysburg, 
where he was severely wounded, and lay on the battlefield thirty-five days. 
After his exchange he was transferred to the 62nd Ala. Regt., and became 
captain of Co. "A." With this command he was in the engagements at 
Chehaw, Spanish Fort and Blakeley, where with his regiment he was cap- 
tured April 9, 1865. He was a prisoner at Ship Island until May i, 1865. 
Returning home he prepared himself for the bar by private study; after 
admission was a few months in the office of Morgan and Lapsley at Selma 
as a student ; began the practice in November, 1866, in Selma, where he 
continued until December i, 1885, when he removed to Birmingham. At 
the latter point he has since resided, taking an active interest in education, 
politics and public affairs. From 1887 for two years he was general coun- 
sel for the Elyton Land Company, and has otherwise enjoyed a large ana 
lucrative practice. Mr. Ward has often responded to demands for orations 
and addresses. At the celebration of the semi-centennial of Howard Col- 
lege in June, 1892, he delivered an address containing the history of the 
institution. In Feb., 1868, he married Alice Ann, daughter of Prof. Amos 
Bailey and Elvira Tubbs (Patton) Goodhue. The former was born in 
New Boston, N. H., and is the son of Joseph Goodhue, and the latter is 
the daughter of Hon. David Patton, of Hancock, N. H. Prof. Goodhue 
came to Claiborne, Ala., in 1845, where he taught a year; and he was then 
elected to a chair in Howard College. He remained in Marion until 1873. 
He died in Gadsden. Captain Ward is a Democrat and a member of the 
Baptist church. He has six living children. See Teeple and Smith's 
History of Jefferson County, Ala., p. 355, for a brief sketch. — Editor. 



The Building of the State.— f Far J. 55 

tlement; and of Alabama it can be truly said that the people of 
to-day are the children of the men who in 1817 were organized 
into a territory and who in 1819 were moulded into a state. The 
civilization that came out of the early settlement of the State grew, 
expanded and strengthened till 1861, when it met with a check and 
a shock that diverted the channel in which it was flowing, and it 
has taken all the subsequent years for the people to return some- 
what to the place filled at the beginning of that great struggle. 

It is a singular fact that in the settlement made in America by 
the Latin races they rarely, if ever, left the sea-board or the navi- 
gable rivers. They built towns accessible to ocean commerce and 
depended upon trade with the aborigines in a large degree for sub- 
sistence. They did not attack the forests and the French did not 
make war on the Indians. , 

The men that made up Alabama as a State came from Tennes- 
see and the Atlantic seaboard ; they did not come to Alabama be- 
cause they were poor or because they were refugees from justice; 
they were not criminals. The spirit of enterprise and conquest 
that has ever inspired men of the Anglo-Saxon race, caused the 
founders of Alabama to seek the fertile lands and the healthy 
mountains for larger breathing room. They wanted more land, 
larger plantations, larger ranges for stock and larger preserves 
for game, and to them there was nothing in the way except the 
presence of the Indians widely scattered over the large territory 
now comprised within the boundaries of the State. These pio- 
neers came with their families, their property, their negroes, lo- 
cated their settlements, built their homes and cleared their farms. 
The State was at that time known as part of the Mississippi Terri- 
tory, and had been a part of the domain of Georgia, and we know 
that laws already existed here. These men brought law with them 
and as soon as they were settled they became subordinate to the 
laws of the land, then embraced in the Mississippi Territory. The 
Anglo-American carries with him the common law wherever he 
goes. It has come to be a part of his brain and his nature. The 
people located at wide intervals in what they called settlements. 
They sought out the fertile land watered by springs and streams ; 
reduced it to cultivation, and there made their homes, or they 
sought, in accordance with their ability, to subjugate the forests 
and river bottoms, the wide expanse of black phosphate lime soil. 



56 Alabama Historical Society, 

known as the black prairies, covered with the best hardwood and 
an undergrowth of rich cane. They next cleared larger domains 
and bought more mules and negroes. They cared very little for 
towns and cities, and consequently towns and cities did not offer 
the best evidence of their growth and wealth. These planters fur- 
nished the lawyers and judges, the legislators and statesmen who 
engaged in the building of the State. 

The presence of the Creek Indians in all central and southern 
Alabama did not keep back the hardy settlers. They came among 
the Indians with no hostile intent, though they knew the danger- 
ous risks they incurred. They squatted on the best lands and 
were neighbors with the red men. Rapidly the territory filled 
with them, until the Indians decided there was not room for 
them and the white men, and then followed Burnt Corn, Fort 
Mims, the Canoe Fight, Talladega and the Horse-shoe. When in 
1836 the Indians became convinced that the white men were too 
many for them, they consented to be removed. So it has ever 
been, and ever will be, the aboriginal races will disappear be- 
fore the stranger ; the weaker wull fall beneath the blows of the 
stronger, and the mingled races of white men will possess the earth 
in subordination to law and order and the wealth that follows in 
the wake of civilization and commerce seeks repose and enjoy- 
ment. Wealth enjoyed in peace is succeeded by enervation and ef- 
feminacy and yields to the strong arm of lawlessness and rapine. 
It happens that wealth in its demands, its exactions and autocratic 
haughtiness brings its own ruin. 

The white man soon became a law, not only to himself, but to 
the red men. A territorial government organized in 181 7 was 
in 1 8 19, because of the rapidly increasing population inflov/ing 
from surrounding States east and north, succeeded by a State 
government. Then began life in fact, which continued until in- 
terrupted by military usurpation in 1865, the nightmare in our po- 
litical history. 

THE CONSTITUTION OF 1819. 

Nothing better illustrates the character of the men who laid the 
foundation of our political life than the first constitution framed 
for the government of the people of the State. No instrument 
ever conceived as an embodiment of organic law was more grave 
and dignified, more elevated in tone, more v^Mse in its carefully 



The Building of the State.— Ward. 57, 

guarded restrictions for conserving the rights of the people ; and 
yet more liberal in all the provisions looking to the education and 
elevation of its citizens. That instrument, as shown in the body- 
thereof, was made for freemen, and free men were white men, for 
it declares "that all freemen, when they form a social compact, 
are equal in rights." That constitution, as it declares, was a so- 
cial compact and under it the people of the new State had agreed 
to live together. 

Their interpretation of constitutional law was the construction 
then given by a large majority of the people of the United States, 
and Alabama under that constitution was admitted into the Un- 
ion. It did not then occur to any one that it was a "league with 
the devil and a covenant with hell." The declaration of rights 
would now make an excellent platform for a political party. Will 
the time ever come when people can return to first principles in 
government ? 

The constitution having been adopted and the State admitted 
into the family of States, its machinery of government was or- 
ganized. It was duly provided that the territorial laws should 
continue in force, and that officers under the territorial govern- 
ment should hold office until succeeded by officers elected under 
the constitution. The first election was held on the third Mon- 
day in September, 1819, for governor, congressmen, members 
of the general assembly, clerks of the several courts and sheriffs 
of the respective counties. The territorial courts were continued 
until the general assembly convened and enacted laws. Under 
the constitution the judicial system provided was substantially 
what it is now, except that all Judges were selected by the gen- 
eral assembly, and what is singular, even the language in which 
the provisions are expressed remains substantially the same. 

JUDICIAL SYSTEM. 

Whatever its defects, under the judicial system then provided 
under the constitution, there was created a jurisprudence, and 
there followed a collection of judicial decisions and expositions of 
organic and statute laws, and elucidations of the principles of com- 
mon law, not surpassed and rarely equaled in the courts of the 
other States or of the United States. It is the pride of Alabama 
lawyers to know the high authority maintained by Alabama de- 
5 



58 Alabama Historical Society. 

cisions on all questions with the courts generally in this country 
and with law writers everywhere. There was something in the 
system that produced this, but there was more in the natures and 
characters of the judges and statesmen who laid so wisely the 
foundation. It may be vanity, it may be superstition ; but there 
was something in the soil and atmosphere of Alabama that made 
men, who, like Minerva, sprang from the brain of nature, fully 
equipped, ready for the battle. But it is more nearly true to say 
that Alabama deserved the best and got it from the other States. 
No State offered so inviting a field to the brainy, educated and en- 
terprising men of other States. The planters of small means 
came hither and grew rich cultivating the land ; the merchant, 
having an eye to gain, grew rich because he had responsible and 
honest customers, and to the capable lawyers there was a harvest 
of good fees accruing to industry and skill. Out of these condi- 
tions it resulted that in large degree lawyers became the legisla- 
tors and congressmen. There is one curious fact apparent in the 
early law reports of Alabama. From the cases cited in the re- 
ports, it will be seen that the early lawyers drew largely from Mas- 
sachusetts, New York, Virginia, North Carolina and South Car- 
olina, and the fact is that many of them were from those States 
and brought with them the best their States could produce. The 
older States drifted away from the purer sources of legal learn- 
ing, but the young men trained in their early schools and courts 
impressed their characters, formed in the better days at home, on 
the institutions and people of Alabama, so that we acquired what- 
ever was best without the deteriorating influences that have in- 
creasingly crept into the government and jurisprudence of the 
older States. No judicial system was ever so conservative as that 
of Alabama, until the sweeping ruin that came in with the re- 
construction period. It may be said as the result of the work of 
the general assembly under that constitution and the decisions of 
the courts there grew up a body of laws evidenced by four separate 
compilations, Toulmin's, Aiken's and Clay's digest, each an im- 
provement on the other, and finally the code of 1852, prepared 
by John J. Ormond, Arthur P. Bagby and George Goldthwaite. 
This was not only a compilation of the statutes, but it was a new 
code of statute laws. It is a monument of learning, a wonder of 
concise and perspicuous law English, and it has been the model 



The Building of the State. — Ward. 59 

for all codes adopted by neighboring- States. A learned judge 
of Georgia, one of the commissioners charged with the duty of 
preparing a code for that State, reported that in the work of the 
commission the code of 1852 had been used as a model, and that 
it was one of the most wonderful bodies of laws produced in mod- 
ern times. It has been revised and revised, but the old lawyers 
remember it with regret. 

In the judicial system of the State, the justice of the peace must 
not be forgotten. There were two in every precinct, served by 
one ministerial officer, the constable. They were men of influ- 
ence and authority and of great respectability. As the people of 
the county only had one opportunity every six months to have 
their controversies settled in the circuit courts, the courts of the 
justice of the peace, exercising a civil jurisdiction and criminal to 
some extent, meeting at least once a month for the ordinary dis- 
putes of the neighborhood, served a great end. Generally the peo- 
ple abided by the decision of the squire, but when the question in- 
volved was principle or character, the litigation did not stop until 
the court of last resort had passed upon it. Sometimes a three- 
dollar calf would set a whole precinct together by the ears, and 
then came the tug of war. It is said that in a neighboring county 
such a suit involved several years in a protracted contest, the par- 
ties incurring costs to the amount of several hundred dollars. The 
judgment was for three dollars and each party was taxed with the 
cost created at his instance. 

The justice was, however, a great man, and as honor and not 
money was the incentive, he, if capable, succeeded himself. The 
habit grew in some instances until sometimes the people forgot to 
hold an election for a successor. It is told of squire Jere Johnson, 
in Dallas county, that he had held office for more than thirty 
years and could scarcely remember his last election. In recon- 
struction days the carpetbaggers, however, stirred him out. He 
soon dropped into his old nest ; the stealing was not good enough 
to endanger his place. The justices conspicuous for their good 
sense relied on Clay's digest, the code of 1852 and the session 
laws and in their sense of right and wrong. Every question was 
tried in the court of conscience. Lawyers were not popular with 
them, as a man learned in the law was supposed to be gifted in 
making the worse appear the better reason, and the squire did not 



6o Alabama Historical Society. 

like to be mixed up in his notions of justice. A celebrated squire 
sat once in a neighboring county where the contest was over the 
hire of a laborer. The neighborhood gathered at the place of trial 
to hear the case. After all the evidence had been gathered from all 
the testimony of many witnesses, the squire gave judgment in fa- 
vor of the plaintiff for $3. The plaintiff declared he would ap- 
peal to the circuit court. The squire indignantly inquired: 
"What! you appeal from my judgment?" The plantiff replied, 
"Yes, he would go where he could get justice." The squire an- 
swered, "There is no appeal from my court. Such a thing was 
never heard of." The unhappy plaintiff said the law gave him 
the right to appeal, and he was a free man and he would appeal. 
The squire immediately paid the judgment by laying the money 
on his docket. Upon further refusal, he arose from his judicial 
chair and gave the plaintiff a fearful drubbing, after which the 
plaintiff washed off the signs of battle, receipted the docket and 
went his way, a wiser man. The crowd applauded the wisdom 
and justice of the squire, and denounced the audacity of the plain- 
tiff. The squire was a court of conscience, deciding cases accord- 
ing to equity as viewed by himself. The justice of the squire per- 
haps tended much to the growth of the prejudice against the law- 
yers. His time has, however, passed away. His office is now 
one of filthy lucre, and the criminal mill grinds out its rapid grist 
to the disgust of all good men. 

Because it was necessary that the justice of the peace then so 
useful in the administration of the law should have forms for his 
guidance and be instructed in elementary law, there was preparea 
by Henry Hitchcock, attorney-general. The Alabama Justice, 
which was published in 1822 by William B. Allen at Cahaba, 
Ala. This is one of the best law books ever published in this 
State or elsewhere. 

EDUCATION. 

Connected with the judicial and legislative history of the State, 
influencing it and being influenced by it, was the educational sys- 
tem of the State. That education should be maintained was im- 
bedded in the constitution of the State, and a solemn covenant was 
made by the State government with the Federal congress that 
the grants of land for the promotion of education should be ex- 



The Building of the State.— Ward. 6l 

clusively devoted to the purposes of the grant. ■ As well as they 
might, with the light and experience of that day, the people under- 
took the performance of the trust. Lightly as the efforts of that 
day at education have been regarded, the township school did a 
great elementary and fundamental work. A great many children 
in those schools received the rudiments of an education which 
stimulated them to seek the academies for college preparation, and 
then the completion of the college course in the best colleges of the 
country, and they made scholars and thinkers in that day. There 
was toughness in the education of that day. The student had not 
much assistance. He was left in the colleges to work out his own 
salvation, and sometimes he was not saved. In the preparatory 
schools, the kindergarten was the music of the switch coming into 
rapid contact with the boy's home-made sliirt. The effect of this 
self-education was to train the young in self-reliance. The State 
university was then the only state institution, but before the year 
1840 the Baptists and Methodists had built seminaries of a high 
grade for the education of girls, and were followed very soon by 
the Presbyterians. For young men the Methodists and Baptists 
began to build and did successfully operate colleges at Florence, 
Marion, Talladega, Huntsville, Summerfield and Greensboro. The 
Methodists were particularly active in building and maintaining 
schools of a high order. During the decade following the year 
1850 there was immense activity all along the lines of education. 
This was stimulated by a forward movement made by the State 
government. A system of public education was inaugurated and 
William F. Perry, a great educator of that day, was made superin- 
tendent of education for the State. The system had not fully de- 
veloped in usefulness when the war between the States ended all 
progress in every direction. 

There was one enterprise inaugurated in connection with the 
University of the State, and v/hich was conducted by and under 
the direction of Prof. Michael Toumey, of the chair of mineralogy 
and geology, with the aid of assistants, that has resulted in in- 
calculable benefit to the State, and more recently to the whole 
country and to the world. It is sufficient to mention Alabama coal 
and pig iron as in a large degree the outgrowth of the work 
commenced by Prof. Toumey and for thirty years conducted by 
Dr. E. A. Smith and under his direction, and then leave the dream 



62 Alabama Historical Society. 

of the future to be worked out after this hour's task has been done. 
Deposits of iron ore and coal were known to exist, but who, fifty 
years ago, imagined that Alabama would at this time be the con- 
trolling factor in the iron markets of the world. 

Of the other and further results of those surveys, of which 
reports were from time to time and are still given to the public, 
mention need not be made. It is sufficient to say that the manu- 
facturing and commercial greatness of Alabama in the year 1900 
is due to the foresight and wisdom and enterprise of the men of 
1850-60. They are dead, and their tombs you may not find, but 
their works do follow after them. 

AGRICULTURE. 

A very large majority of the settlers came to the State to engage 
in agriculture. As rapidly as the government surveys were made 
and district land offices were opened, the farmers came to the 
State and located their settlements. Special inducements were 
offered to the settlers in the act admitting the State into the Un- 
ion, under which the lands sold to the settlers were exempt from 
taxation by the State for five years. From the year 1820 to 1830 
there was a vast inflowing of population. The State was every- 
where covered by the native forests, and in many places the rich- 
est lands were densely covered by trees of enormous grow^th. The 
hardy settlers as bravely attacked the forests as they had attacked 
the Indians, and soon the mighty blows of the axe echoed through 
the vast wilds and the mighty trees made room for the plow and 
hoe, the avant-couriers of civilization. In this battle with the 
trees and the cane brake there were some rude and wasteful mis- 
takes. In the cane brake region groves of the finest black wal- 
nut, pecan, white oak and cedar fell under the axe, were 
rolled into log heaps and burned into ashes, their loss to be la- 
mented by the present occupants of the lands. Occasionally there 
can be found now in Hale, Perry and Marengo counties, negro 
cabins, barns and fences built of red cedar seventy years old. Like 
all their descendants, the pioneer farmers lived in the then pres- 
ent, and cared not for the future. The walnut, white oak and 
cedar were in the way of cotton and corn, and must give place to 
the promise of present profit. Everywhere a fierce, intense indus- 
try prevailed. Forests gave way to fields blossoming with bloom- 



The Building of the State.— f Far J. 63 

ing cotton and tassehng corn, and the hills were crowned with the 
cottages of the poor and the mansions of the rich. To this day 
can you recall anything more beautiful than vast fields joined to 
fields, covered by the ever red and white flowers of the sea-green 
cotton, anon rising and sinking in waves to the breezes? The 
cotton field became the madness of the planters. Saw mills and 
grist mills soon lent the hum of their progress to the industry of 
the farmer, and comfortable and hospitable homes filled the land. 
Cotton and woolen mills, though at first not profitable, began to 
appear and manufacturing towns began to spring up. A home 
market was easily found for their osnaburg and woolen products. 
We often hear of intelligent farming, and that the agriculture of 
that day was rude. This we do know, that the early farmers 
were prosperous under most adverse circumstances, while under 
the most favoring conditions, with railroads and markets every- 
where at hand, and smoke houses in the great northwest, because 
meat can be raised more cheaply there than here, the modem 
farmers have failed, and their mortgaged farms have gone to swell 
the wealth of the money lender. Why? It must be that during 
the war the people were educated to have their meat and bread 
handed to them. 

There are some features of rural life in early Alabama which 
must not be overlooked. They may, in some places, exist now, 
but if they do they are not often seen and never mentioned. The 
young men and maidens loved, courted and married in those days 
as they do now. They went to church and singing school on 
foot and on horseback, and, as it was called the boy kept company 
with the girl, and everybody knew what they meant. Soon a boy 
rode around the neighborhood with a lot of names, and it was a 
grievous offense to have a bridge made over one's nose. There 
was a wedding ceremony, a marriage feast, a dance, or singing 
and playing, and the next day an infair. Do you know what an 
infair was? The wedding feast still survives, but is the infair a 
thing of the past ? Before the wedding the young man had located 
a settlement nearby ; a cabin, a crib, a stable and a garden had been 
built, and a spring cleaned out or a well dug. In a few days the 
happy pair (and such pairs were always happy) moved into the 
new cabin. The father of the young wife had given her a cow 
and calf, and her careful mother had given her a good bed, with 



64 Alabama Historical Society. 

abundant furnishings, and a spinning wheel. The young man's 
father had given him a good plow horse, a few hogs, a load of 
corn and an extra bed. An oven, a skillet and a pot furnished the 
cooking outfit ; a plain pine table, a few plates, cups and saucers, 
knives and forks, and they were ready for the great work of life. 
Soon afterwards, one passing that way would see a milk strainer 
hanging on the wall by the front door, and just outside a bucket 
with a gourd in it, where the drinking water might be handy. 
Lying just before the front step was the yard dog, with his 
head between his front paws, dreaming of the home he had left 
and hunting in his dreams. To your loud halloa he rose and 
gave cry "to the honest watch dog's bark, baying deep-mouthed 
welcome home." The geese and chickens cackled and crowed 
in the front yard, and the sheep bleated in the nearby pasture. 
From inside the cabin came the song of the spinning wheel. In 
a few years, going the same way, the traveler would see, in addi- 
tion to dog, geese, chickens, cows and sheep, several tow-headed 
children, shouting, clapping hands and playing. In the door there 
would be standing a woman somewhat faded, no longer with rib- 
bon around her throat or hair combed smoothly back, showing 
roses, or tidily-fitting dress, but with neat apron in front, on 
which, from time to time, she would wipe her hands. Though ap- 
pearances had changed, she and the children, and the husband in 
the nearby field, with shoulders stooped and hat slouched, were 
happy still, and would not, for all the joys of to-day, wipe out the 
happy past. The cabin was no longer single. It, too, had grown 
and multiplied with the family. The field had become a farm and 
the horse path a deep furrowed wagon road. And so the land 
filled and prospered. The people labored, fished, hunted and had 
their frolics, and experienced that "there was fun in the country 
as well as the town." 

Later on we may look in upon another scene. The State had 
grown and the people h,ad become wealthy. The man who came 
in a covered wagon, bringing his wife and children, with a few 
slaves and cattle, to the settlement previously located, had over- 
come the forest, and was now able to sit on his broad piazza and 
look out upon his wide domain, from which the song of the plow- 
man came back, and speculate as to the future of the estate when 
he was gathered to mother earth. From the parlor there came 



The Building of the State.— Ward. 65 

the sound of piano and song, and the hum of happy voices of wife 
and daughters, educated in the female seminary where all the then 
known accomplishments were taught. And they made women in 
that day — glorious women, who were ornaments to motherhood 
and blessed mankind. Here, too, the youths and maidens, after a 
different sort, courted, flirted, loved and married. In that season of 
the year after the abundant crops were gathered and marketed, 
the planters, their wives, young men and daughters, gave them- 
selves over to rejoicing. All had their carriages and horses, 
drivers and outriders, and they went from plantation to plantation, 
and days and nights were made up of music, dancing and love 
making. These all ended as such will ever end, in love and mar- 
riage, and the marriage feasts, and in those days followed by the 
invariable infair at the home of the groom's parents. The newly- 
married were given a farm, and each parent gave a quota of ne- 
groes, so that the young people never knew the hardships of be- 
ginning life as in the pioneer days. 

Well, what of all that rude wealth and elegance built on slave 
labor? Shall we say let the memory of it rot? Since it did ex- 
ist, why not let the memory of it perish ? Never ! The grandest, 
proudest, purest period in the history of this country and of hu- 
man liberty existed when slavery was most to be seen and most 
greatly flourished. It is not denied that there were great and re- 
grettable evils as its outgrowth, but they were being corrected, 
and but for evil and interfering fanatical agitation by people who 
knew nothing of what they denounced, would have been corrected, 
without the terrible consequences of its violent uprooting. What- 
ever may now be said of negro slavery, the right of it or the wrong 
of it, it is doubtful if the great forests covering the fertile lands 
of Alabama, without the aid of negro slave labor, could have been 
cleared away. Free negro labor would have fled from them as 
slaves often fled to them. Montesquieu, the great French philos- 
opher, the author of the "Spirit of the Laws," said slave labor 
was absolutely necessary to bring the forests of a new country 
into subjection to agriculture. However many may be inclined 
to apologize for negro slavery, the negroes, black and humble 
though they were, performed a most noteworthy service in the 
work of building the State. In a large degree they created the 
wealth of the State, and were the wealth of the State. Without 



66 Alabama Historical Society. 

negro slavery some of the strongest and most peculiar character- 
istics of Southern statesmanship and manhood could not have 
been. The authority and executive capacity of the men were 
due, in a large degree, to slavery. It created a dominant class and 
made and maintained the Southern aristocracy. It was a trans- 
ference of the feudal system of Europe to the South. It was so 
eminently respectable that one of the strongest aspirations of the 
intelligent, hard-working poor man was to become a slave owner, 
so that after the field, the cabin, his next purchase was a negro, and 
then followed more negroes, and the plantation. The negro shared 
the respectability as well as the name of the master, and one has 
never been known to surrender that enjoyment. So great and 
powerful was this influence that the educated and enterprising 
man of New England, as soon as he could after he had shed his 
peddler's wagon and clocks, became the owner of a negro cook 
and house servant. He made this sacrifice to respectability. 

Of the patriarchal life of the planter and his family with the 
negroes on the plantation, the very best thing ever written was by 
Miss Betty Lou Clarke, the daughter of Dr. Richard Clarke, an 
old Fourth Alabama regiment captain, of Uniontown, this State, 
where she was born and reared. Only a short time before "Did- 
dle, Dumps, and Tot" was published she married a Georgia man, 
and so, losing her identity, seems to have passed out of mind.^ 

The negro furnished a safe and profitable investment for all 
classes, and in this way unconsciously became a most important 
factor in building the State. 

For the last thirty-five years his influence has tended to degrade 
both the white man and himself. 

TOWN BUILDING. 

As a part of the building of the State the creation and growth 
of towns was a little peculiar. One can readily understand that 
many towns as commercial centers came naturally into existence 
and grew into form, but many of them were established by the 
general assembly. When a county was formed, in order to suit the 
convenience of the people, a central point, otherwise unobjection- 
able, was selected and there public buildings were erected. This 

''This little volume, the alternative title of which is "Plantation Child- 
Life," was first published in 1882. Its author, Mrs. Louise Clarke- 
Pyrnelle, is now (1904) a resident of Birmingham. 



The Building of the State, — Ward. 67 

was the case with Bibb Old Courthouse, about six miles west of 
the town of Randolph, where the ruins of the courthouse and jail 
remained a few years since, and there perhaps the tavern still 
stands where Noah B. Coker, Esq., a justice of the peace, gener- 
ously dispensed justice, peach and honey, and where one could 
have the best hot chicken pie that ever greeted nostril or palate. 
The legislature of the Mississippi Territory in 1809 appointed a 
commission of distinguished citizens to buy thirty acres of land 
which, after reserving three acres for a court house square and 
public buildings, they were to lay off into half-acre lots and sell on 
a credit of twelve months. The town so ordered to be bought and 
laid off was to be called Twickenham. Who would have thought 
that in that day of red men, bears and panthers any one could 
have been found who had read Pope? This town was bought, 
laid off and in 181 1 was by the same legislature named Hunts- 
ville. The town was most wisely located in one of the most beau- 
tiful valleys of America, in the center of lands unsurpassed in fer- 
tility and around the finest spring in the world ; and it may be 
that great as Huntsville is, if it had retained the name of Twick- 
enham it might have been the greatest inland city of America. 
Commissioners were appointed to lay off Cahaba. Selma, Ashville 
and other towns. Some of the people were of too practical a turn 
to consult the general assembly or the convenience of the people in 
their public matters, but built on the navigable streams whose wa- 
ters then furnished rude transportation for commerce. Boats, 
constructed for that purpose, slowly conveyed merchandise up and 
down the rivers, discharging and receiving freight. In many 
cases the legislature simply declared that the town by a certain 
name was established. Strange to say that towns thus established 
still stand. Most of the towns resulted from being selected as 
county seats. They were as large as the demands of the people 
required, and some of them were fully grown fifty years ago. 
When the hoarse cough of the steamboat began to be heard on 
the navigable rivers and cotton became a factor in the world's 
commerce, the towns along such rivers grew rapidly and became 
commercial centers for farmers from the far interior to bring to 
market their cotton crops. Town building and river commerce 
soon resulted in efforts at railroad building. This was slow work, 
and at first awkwardly done, but grew rapidly, so that during the 



68 Alabama Historical Society. 

war the armies could be rapidly transferred from one vital point 
to another. It will thus be seen that the recent habit of town 
building is not original. ]\Ien so long ago were quick to see the 
advantages of location for manufacturing and commerce. This 
was notably the case with the town of Bainbridge, near which 
Sheffield stands. In third Yerger's Tennessee Reports the litiga- 
tion in Donelson vs. Weakley, grew out of a sale of town lots, 
boomed so extravagantly that the court said that the boomer must 
not take any advantage from his booming. 

These towns were centers of education, and according to wealth 
and prosperity and population, centers of culture and refinement. 
Some of these, like Tuscaloosa, Huntsville, Marion, Greensboro 
and Tuskegee, were especially distinguished as places of educa- 
tion and refined culture. The people of Alabama have not rapidly 
left their farms to live in the towns and cities as they have in the 
Northern States. In New England manufactures have prospered 
at the expense of agriculture. One passes through rural New 
England with a feeling of disappointment. Farming is only truck 
gardening. The farmers have moved to town. The women pre- 
ferred to work in the factories, to milking cows, to pickling and 
preserving. As we get away from our past, this will be the case 
with Alabama. The women will go to town and starve as seam- 
stresses and saleswomen, because they cannol; bear the loneliness 
of the country. 

THE MILITIA. 

A militia organization grew out of the perilous times of the ear- 
ly settlement. The Indians were here and nearly always on the 
w^ar path. Then the English and the Spaniards were threatening 
and there was more or less lawlessness. In every precinct all men 
over eighteen and under forty-five years of age were compelled to 
muster certain days in the year. They were formed into com- 
panies, with captain, two lieutenants, and the usual number of non- 
commissioned officers. Each county had its regimental organiza- 
tion with a colonel, the usual regimental and stafif officers. Every 
year there was a grand county muster at the county seat. These 
general musters were great occasions. Sometimes they were held 
on the fourth of July, and a barbecue was often the temptation 
to make a full muster. There was music by the drum and fife 
and the shrill notes of "Yankee Doodle" charmed the variegated 



The Building of the State.— Ward. 69 

soldiers. The candidates were there. Hence grew mightily the 
colonels, and every county claimed its chieftains by the score. 
There were brigade and major generals. The military spirit was 
always strong in the people and was quickened at all times by re- 
citals of the soldiers of the Revolution, the War of 181 2, and 
more recently by the grand achievements of the Mexican War. 
There was never a time when the masses did not hail with delight 
the prospects of a war. Truly the citizen soldiery was the bul- 
wark of the State. 

THE HUSTINGS. 

The fervid patriotism of the people was always kept at a white 
heat by the free and full discussion of all political questions on the 
stump by the ablest orators. The people were for a half century 
almost equally divided between two great political parties, the con- 
stituents of which were equally honest, intelligent and patriotic, 
and the leaders were fearless and wide awake in the exposure of 
the weakness and wickedness of their opponents. A man with a 
ragged reputation did not dare to appear as a candidate, for there 
were always those whose party loyalty was too lax to make them 
vote for a bad man. The only hope for the weaker for success 
was to put up the very best man to be had. There w^as no such 
thing as a party nomination to be had by fraud, trickery or sleight- 
of-hand means, and purchasing votes in a political convention in- 
sured defeat. It was not possible to win an election at the polls 
by ballot box fraud. Election frauds were unhesitatingly ex- 
posed and election contests disgraced the men elected by fraud. 
The man who lived in that period of State building sighs in vain 
for the days that return no more forever. Political corruption 
simply did not exist. The contests on the stump were occasions 
of great oratorical display. The speakers of the opposing parties 
arranged the campaign beforehand and also to divide time, each 
giving the other an equal chance to win popular favor. It was 
wonderful what an influence fairness had. The fact that the 
Whigs nominated their ablest man made it necessary for the 
Democrats to compel their mightiest champions into the political 
battle. The ability and integrity of the champions were the boasts 
of the contending parties and no man ever felt that there was oc- 
casion for him to vote for an inferior nominee. As a result there 
were giants in those days. Wherever integrity and ability were 



70 Alabama Historical Society. 

required, the people sought out the man and compelled him into the 
public service. How different it is now. In this State there are 
not now two great political parties of equal merit, commanding 
the loyalty of their members. Opposing candidates of equal and 
great ability no longer challenge the support of the electors or meet 
on the stump. However the nomination may be obtained or by 
whom, the threat of negro domination compels the party support 
of the nominee. The presence of the negro in politics is corrupt- 
ing and produces ills from which there appears to be no possible 
deliverance. To an American, the greatest of all dangers is the 
corrupt ballot box. Men of Alabama, address yourselves to the 
remedy. The saddest reflection that ever comes to the patriot is 
that the ballot is no longer a guarantee of freedom and liberty 
and honesty in the public administration. More dishonesty in pub- 
lic affairs is unearthed in one year now than existed in sixty 
years in building the State. What is the remedy? 

THE STATE BUILDED. 

Thus has been traced in your hearing the building of the State. 

It was a grand, glorious, beautiful structure. It was the vision 
of the prophet materialized ; the dream of the statesman, a real- 
ized fact, an awakening. Peace reigned in the land and home, 
and plenty filled the barns. The laws were justly administered 
and order everywhere prevailed. Such a thing as riots were un- 
known. Crime was abhorred, condemned and punished. Ala- 
bama, my mother, O Alabama ! "Glorious as the sun, beautiful 
as the moon and terrible as an army with banners." Terrible, 
indeed, to her foes, for when the tocsin of war sounded and the 
drum beat rolled through the land, calling to arms, glorious old 
mother, she sent 120,000 of her sons to the field, one-tenth of her 
entire population, white and black and never one disgraced the 
bosom that nursed him. Glorious as was this structure, the prod- 
uct of more than sixty years in building, it was destroyed by the 
madness of an hour. It will be for another groping among the 
ruins to tell the story of the rebuilding. But mark the prophecy ! 
However grand the State that rises out of the ashes of the ruins 
of 1 86 1 to 1875, she will ever bear traces of the scars received in 
dragging through the mire of reconstruction and the revengeful 
national legislation following the war. 



The Building of the Sidiie.— Ward. 71 

And now, what shall be done to make and complete the record 
of the building? In the fearful struggle through which the people 
have labored and in the passing away of the men who had a part 
in this building, the materials, disjecta membra, had well nigh 
perished. Unfortunately no tombs or monuments were built bear- 
ing the tales that were told by one to another that some "Old Mor- 
tality" in future years, with chisel in hand, might decipher. A few 
however, at their own charges have given themselves to the labor 
of rescuing the deeds of the mighty dead from perishing. Most 
notably the secretary of this Society, and here and there sons and 
daughters who have gone to distant States, have labored, saying 
"Lest they be forgot." 

TO WHAT END THIS LABOR? 

The boys and girls of to-day will be the men and women to help 
in the building of the future State. If Alabama has no history, 
there will be no memory of a glorious past to beckon to a more 
glorious future. A State founded in sordid meanness will bring 
forth only Dead Sea fruit to crumble to ashes in the touch. If 
there is one thing powerful enough to rescue a man from mean- 
ness and obscurity it is the memory of a glorious ancestry. To 
make heroes there must have been heroes to remember, and if 
there be no memories of heroes in song or story, then, however 
glorious the past, there must be an ignoble future. We modern 
Christians feel a pity for those ancient people who preserved in 
their homes statuettes of dead ancestors and urns in which were 
kept the ashes of their heroes. Idle worship you say, and idolatry. 
The Lord then forgive us such idolatry, for we must needs wor- 
ship the deeds of the dead fathers and emulate the great immortal 
souls that fired their beings while living. All men and things 
must have an ancestry ; the coward, the ignoble, theirs ; the brave, 
the good, the magnanimous and wise, theirs. Blood will tell. 
Yes, but send it through the being with a hot thrill. 

Recently a bright young school teacher said : "When I talk to 
my little scholars about some far-away land, full of story and in- 
cident, they listen with eager attention, but when I tell them of 
Alabama, they become dull and listless." Suppose the teacher had 
told her scholars of the wild war whoop that rang out over doomed 
and blood-stained Fort Mims, or of the terrible struggle of the 



72 Alabama Historical Society. 

canoe fight, or of the death grapple in horrible Horseshoe Bend, 
or of the flight of brave Bill Weatherford as he escaped, leaping^ 
his horse from the river bank into the dark flowing water of 
the Alabama below. Or of the more recent and never to 
be forgotten deeds of Alabamians that ought to be pre- 
served in marble and bronze, song and story. Think you the 
children would have been listless? How shall these things be 
preserved ? Let the decree go forth that in all the schools and col- 
leges the history of Alabama be taught. To this end let the 
chronicler be named, the story of the sovereign State be told, and 
the expenses be paid out of the public treasury. Let it be said, 
to the honor of the present State administration and general as- 
sembly, that something has been done to rescue the perishing and 
gather up the fragments, lest all be lost. 



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